Pittsburgh is watershed. There is before Pittsburgh and after Pittsburgh.
The massacre at Tree of Life has and will result in more security at Temple Emanuel and at synagogues throughout America.
And it has created more conversation about how truly safe and secure Jews are in the United States. I have heard grounded, rational people share how vulnerable, exposed and frightened they feel now. That is why we have had, and will continue to have, including on Shabbat, upgraded security measures, including uniformed, armed Newton police officers standing guard. Your safety and security are our first priority.
- That is also why it is all the more imperative that we join a national movement, #ShowUpForShabbat, and come together. Not afraid. Not divided. Not missing from the pews. But here, stronger than ever.
Shabbat morning is going to be very powerful.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going to join us to read the “Prayer for Our Country” and to offer words of love, presence and support.
I am going to read words from one of our members, Ellen Segal, who is from Pittsburgh, who knew the two brothers, Cecil and David Rosenthal, very well. She and her husband, Steve, attended the funeral and will share what it was like to be at their service and burial.
Rabbi Robinson is going to deliver a powerful sermon entitled “Tending the Tree of Life in the Valley of the Shadow.”
We will sing “America the Beautiful” together.
Martin Luther King Jr. taught us: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
This Shabbat, let us radiate light and love.
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